Usually so great, Cate Blanchett gives a toe-curlingly awful and Razzie-worthy turn in this tiresome aria of liberal self-pity and self-importance: a hammily acted piece of attempted score-settling relating to a bungled CBS news story from 2004 about George W Bush’s alleged avoidance of military service in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam war.
The story hinged on documents that could not be authenticated – the burden of proof resting with the broadcaster – and in the overheated atmosphere of the “war on terror” and an impending presidential election, it finally cost the jobs of award-winning producer Mary Mapes and her star news anchor Dan Rather. Blanchett plays Mapes like a melodrama queen, confusing shrillness with defiance. Robert Redford deserves a special Monsieur Tussauds award for his unanimated approach to the Rather role.
When Mapes and Rather broke the story, they were immediately hammered with vicious online abuse from rightwingers and misogynists. This was the early days of Web 2.0, when the mainstream media classes were jumpily unused to the unending blizzard of attack, and perhaps allowed themselves to be panicked. Mapes and Rather resent the way that the debate gets bogged down in the documents without focusing on the larger issue, but the film gets bogged down in just the same way. Sure, they were up against malign political and corporate pressures, but shouldn’t these wily old news campaigners have waited until they could fireproof the story? Having let Dubya off the hook, they just think the story’s about them.
